Greedy Goblin

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Group identity in EVE vs other MMOs

Yesterday I called out EVE groups for lacking an identity and ideology that would separate them from other groups. One could tell that I was overly demanding, since after all, EVE is a video game and EVE corps and alliances are simply gaming "clans" or "guilds". Does a WoW guild, World of Tanks clan or Half-life Counterstrike team has an identity or ideology? Mostly not. Their self-definition usually lacks any kind of ideological or cultural element, it goes either socially: "a group of friends enjoy playing together", or competitively: "a dedicated group of players with the aim to climb high on the leaderboard". Why should EVE corps and alliances be any more?

The answer lies in the mechanics of the mentioned games versus EVE Online. In vast majority of the games, the group activity has a hard limit on group size. A WoW hard mode raiding team can have 10 or 25 members depending on what raid size they play. While the guild itself can be bigger, they simply cannot enter the raid, as the game engine don't let them. So a hard mode WoW raiding guild can only contain alts, replacements, trialists and non-raiding friends besides the raiding team. The point is that they don't take part in the defining activity of the guild, they are not really part of the team, they are just accessories.

Being an accessory is not acceptable for a decent player for longer than a trial period. It doesn't matter how much I identify with a gaming clan and how much they consider me a good player, I can't join unless they have an empty spot, so I must join some other guild who has spot. This eliminates the need of identity for the gaming clan: "we exist because the game mechanics forces us to exist". While individual players can move between guilds, guilds can disband and new ones form, but the number of functional teams in game is decent_player_number / player_limit (non-raiding WoW-guilds or non-clanwarring WoT clans are the non-functional teams). This number of teams will exist, period.

In EVE there is no in-game limit on fleet size. There is no such answer in EVE Online as "we'd like to have you but there is no spot". Please note that this also takes out the "you aren't on the level of gaming we are on" as argument. If my DPS is half of yours, I still bring 0.5 unit more firepower to your fleet. In other games taking such scrub would have the opportunity cost of removing one good player from the team. This is what Goons recognized in the old times: a bunch of individually weak players can zerg down a smaller number of elite players. This is what turned "Elite PvP" a joke or insult term in EVE, while it's the most respectable term in other games.

There is one and only one reason for a team to reject my application: if I don't identify with the goal of the team, so my contribution would be negative. This is typically done by spying, awoxing or stealing. This also means that if player X fits into both corp A and B, there is no reason for A and B to coexist. They should merge, not only to maximize efficiency, but also to have more "friends" who share their identity. There is absolutely no reason for corporations A and B to be at war, since war is a negative-sum game, and any objective they could gain by winning could more easily gained by merging.

As there is no game-mechanic forced corp spots, the number of spots are limited by nothing but identity. BoB couldn't merge with GSF because their beliefs made it impossible. A BoB player and a GSF player would see each other as despicable assholes. Their differences could only be settled by war. Since there is no unity among people on Earth, there can't be unity among the players of EVE. There will always be groups that cannot merge, because their beliefs, behavior or language are too different. There will always groups which can't vacuum players from each other because a person fitting to one cannot fit the other. But to say this, the group must have an identity, a way of playing. To continue to exist, an EVE group must clearly explain to present and future members why to stay/join them and not some other.

This is very visible in faction warfare, where the NPC factions have no such identities, so players simply flock to the one which has the best LP reward or best chance to get kills. Theoretically the warring sides of player coalitions should have a stronger identity than NPC factions, but I can't see it. It seems players are more or less randomly distributed according to who recruited them from highsec or some out-of-game community. An N3 pilot would just as easily fit to a CFC alliance as an Amarr FW pilot could fit into the Minmatar FW.

My best guess for the continued existence of the multitude of identity-less groups is the minimal-group paradigm. Researchers distributed test subjects randomly into two groups. "Groupmates" did not know each other, had nothing in common, nor they could expect any reward or repeated interaction from fellow from members. Yet, they supported group members when distributing resources, they rated fellow groupmates higher on various traits (like clever, beautiful, trustworthy) than members of the opposing group. Such tests with children were banned because - like in Lord of the Flies - children became violent against the members of the "enemy group", despite they were assigned totally randomly.

The minimal-group paradigm is a perfect ape-subroutine. Apes aren't distributed randomly among clans, they are biological relatives. So mental schemes that motivated apes to support clanmates and kill members of other clans increased the survival of their genes. Social people - who aren't much more than bots driven by these prehistoric scripts - automatically apply this behavior on any random group they are placed into. Therefore they believe that their group and its leader is stronger, better, smarter than even allied groups and merging with them would be unfavorable as they would have to carry the "inferior ones". This means that if any punk successfully planted a banner, he will have loyal followeers without effort or merit, simply because the members will feel privileged to belong to this "great" group and would fear being kicked into "lesser" groups, despite the groups are objectively identical. Because of this, giving identity to the team is not needed, the members automatically give it one: "the best guys in the game". Since their loyalty is given, even leading isn't needed. One side will lose this war because of bad decisions. But who cares, we didn't want that region anyway and we'll finally be a nomadic PvP alliance yay!

26 comments:

Zaxin
said...

Wow Hard mode raiding displays the fission-fusion grouping strategy of primates. This does not imply that the members not out on the foraging mission today (the hard mode raid of the day) are extraneous.

As you have studied population dynamics in primates, you will know that "they are related" is incorrect. Only one gender within the group (at best) will be related. Any others which are related are prepubescent, and not counted in your activity measures (As, even the most Randian individual does not go in for making juveniles partake in adult activities)

So, back to how this relates to humans. The non-related members of the group (50% or more depending on the group type)are there because they bring something. This may be that they offer some form of protection, that they offer hunting abilities, but mostly that they are suitable for genetic donation.Within these members a hierarchy forms, with the one who is best at these things becoming the leader.

So, yes there are members of the non-related group who are not the best at what they do, but, in combination with others the sum is more than the parts.

Human beings (Yourself included I presume) are primates. There are precisely 0 solitary great apes. The closest would be Orangutans and even that is stretching the definition of solitary.Groups form because they can achieve things which an individual cannot. This works from the corporation level downwards, because, let's face it, if a CEO could do what 2000 people can solo, then he would not need to pay them wages and would be even richer.Science progresses due to collaboration, yes, even the notorious recluses in science have read, and spoken to, other scientists. One man alone makes little difference, one hundred people? a bit more difference, several thousand people under a common aim? Well, you can see this in game and in real life, and it is the reason why you as a solo individual will never own space in Eve.

Does red VS blue count as an identity? E-uni?What do you see as options for identity's?And how big would you merge/split as groups?eg:Pirate + White knight + Mathboy groups 2 opposing social stand point and 1 calculative standpoint that does max efficiencyOr adding stuff such as armor/shield or cald amarr gallente minmi (be it as NPC group or the social standpoint they represent)

Basically if you would merge and move members what groups do you see in exsistance?

Correct logistics and controll of such large groups are hard offcourse but a good system can controll them with good efficiency.

Blog on I enjoy reading your point of vieuw. You write your considerations aswell as the way you came to these in a very good manner. Not that my appreciation is something you needed. =)

yet i play videogames exactly for the lack of anything ideology - being german and having studied a bit of history i am a bit sensitive on that topic.

anyway, ideology in eve - goons came to this game with a very big portion of it. the whole "ruin your game" attitude seems to be the ultimate e-racism adaption - the elite (pl) approach is pretty much the same.anyway, as they allied with other players they more and more had to give up on their original cause - like policies/movements/whatever in real life.

btw, having recently switched from NA to PBLRD, i really really do not understand how exactly goons are killing my gaming experience :-))

And i am pretty sure goon linemembers do not undertsand that neither.

and before you and lucas argue. No, Cfc =! goons.

i really do not get your attitude...on the one hand you often demand a free and liberal world, on the other hand you want eve to be like real life - which atm is neither free nor liberal.

@Zaxin"[...]and it is the reason why you as a solo individual will never own space in Eve."He will. At least he stated so. You find it in the comments (am too lazy to search for it atm), somewhere after the end of the gankers project. As a respond to Michael LeBlanc.

@Zaxin: you mix cooperation with grouping. I cooperate with the baker: he is good at making bread, but suck in making chemicals. I eat his bread and he uses my chemicals, using money as medium of exchange. The cop protects me for my tax money, the journalist informs me for my subscription fee.

Only a madman would support isolation from the people. However there is no need to personally-socially connect for this cooperation. I don't have to know the name of the firefighter who literally risks his life for me. He does it because it's his job and gets paid.

In EVE I started with the least solitary career: trading. Every single dime I have is gained from people who picked the lowest buy or highest sell order. We cooperated for mutual reward without ever chatting.

I'm for objective, automatized, non-personal cooperation and see social interactions as a source of corruption, nepotism and favoritsm.

@Daniel: before Goons there was the "elite PvP" ideology, the "l33t masters commanding scrub pets". This might doesn't look an ideology because in gaming world this is so widespread that you take it just as obviously as "marriage = man+woman".

yes, I played tabletop games, but found them lacking when computers came in (I'm old).

"Planting a banner" is a hard thing to do.You tried to do it in Eve twice - first with Ganker project, second with WH project. Both times it didn't work.

Now you are calling people who plant banners "useless punks", making you the "i didn't want to plant a banner anyway" kind of person.

Interestingly enough, you succeeded to "plant a banner" in WoW, also twice in my memory. First, with "guild without stupid chat" banner, and second with "undergeared" banner. Somehow people rallied to these and both the Pug and the Undergeared project had decent and fruitful runs.

I am not exactly sure what was different, but my take on things is that you were less of an anti-social in WoW. Sure, you bashed morons and slackers, but you also seemed to believe that a good social group can achieve great things, provided M&S are somehow dealt with.

Within Eve, however, you aren't even talking about M&S anymore. Whatever negative sort of vision the notion of M&S and necessity to fight against them has provided you, is now gone. No vision -> no banner. No banner -> inability to start a decent project.

Projects require social groups. As long as you shun "all" social groups, you won't have a good project for anyone but yourself. There must be some groups in Eve you have at least some positive respect for. Maybe you could try joining them and see if you can help with anything besides ISK?

@Maxim: I didn't want to just plant a banner, I wanted to plant a SPECIFIC banner. The very point of these posts is that they purposefully plant unspecific banners: everyone is invited.

I know what's different in EVE and WoW: WoW has a system-included win criteria. If I have more bosskills or higher PvP rating, than you, I'm better in these game areas period. In WoW the "let's dance on the mailbox and duel with lvl 1s" guy is considered "oser in WoW" by everyone (including himself, he just doesn't care and call successful players no-lifers). People wanted to progress, were ready to try out new things. In EVE the "let's just hang out, have fun, get into frig PvP" guy isn't considered loser in EVE, nor excluded from certain content. This means that there is no push to make an effort.

In EVE also there is no such thing as "achievement" that you mentioned. I made both ISK and kills in the magnitude of 1000-men corporations, but no one seemed to be impressed. Compare it with the reception of blue raiding results in the WoW community.

Again: people aren't motivated to make an effort, because there is no point. If I'd single-handedly beat out Goonswarm from Deklein, what would the average EVE player say? "If it floats your boat, fine. In the meantime I had so much fun dueling in frigs lolololol"

What you don't like - what you have never liked - is that eve players respect accomplishment of things by skill or courage, wheras you want to 'achieve' things by grinding.

You get upset that people don't respect your 'PvP'. I'd like you to examine why you think they should respect it - you ganked miners in highsec. You did this in a way you admit was both easy and repetitive. Why should anyone respect you for doing a tedious, repetitive task lots of times?

When you think about it, it makes a lot more sense to respect the people eve players do respect: those who seek out challenges and overcome them.

A few months back, someone suggested you go out and try to kill a couple of people in frigates. You did not do this. You should have, but you didn't.

What you did instead was complain that killing a frigate would not give you a badge.

This is the heart of the problem - to you, an 'achievement' is something you get on xbox live, a badge to say you did a task x number of times.

To the rest of the eve community, an achievement is the successful completion of a difficult task.

This is why a large number of players respect a single kill which would be difficult to achieve more than any number of trivial ganks.

@Peter: at first, I doubt if making 600M an hour or 1B kills/hour is easy. Granted, to turn it into 50B/month or 125B kills/month need grinding, but how else could I prove that I wasn't just lucky in that hour.

Also, they carefully avoid defining what is "difficult PvP". Tournaments are such. Most other "PvP-er" just gank and then claim it was "hard PvP". Perfect point "go get kills in frigates": my own alts count? Or people I paid to die? 3 days old newbie in an armor Merlin? Can you somehow prove that any particular kill (outside alliance tournament) is not such thing?

Sports have VERY long rulebook and you can be disqualified or penalized for trivial errors, exactly to enforce that the challenge is there.

Winning in box is hard. Knocking down a boxer from behind while he is shopping is easy. Rules, definitions prevent the latter being called boxing.

@GEvlon"I made both ISK and kills in the magnitude of 1000-men corporations, but no one seemed to be impressed"Do you still not get this? You picked your own math to work this out and put forward a flawed conclusion, both times.

With the isk, you took a figure that you made up as a rough guess at what an alliance made, then you divided it by the number of members, alts included. You then compared that to your personal income. So 3 mistakes there:1. You made up the alliance income2. You divided by number of players + ats, but conveniently didn't do the same to yourself (I can think of about 18 characters you own just off the top of my head).3. MOST importantly, you didn't take into account the fact that that is additional income. Each and every member of the alliance makes their own income on top of that. Now I know at least a couple of people who are as loaded if not more so than you are, so already your calculation falls apart. To compare your personal income you would need to compare it to the entire alliances personal income, not just to the fractional budget that keeps the alliance going.

With the kills, you decided a metric to go by which nobody was competing with. So it's no surprise you won. I could gather all of my workmates together and do a "stab yourself in the face" competition. Chances are I'd only need to stab myself once and win. Not because noone else has the capability to stab themselves in the face, but because they simply don't want to and aren't competing.Then on top of that once again you did the "lets divide by everyone, PI alts, and all!" magic to get the figures as low as possible.

"If I'd single-handedly beat out Goonswarm from Deklein, what would the average EVE player say?"If you did that you would find that people would be incredibly impressed. See that's an actual accomplishment. That's something that can't just be done by any retard with too much time on their hands.

See, what you liked about WoW is that you could just put more time in instead of skill and achieve all the same. More bosses may mean that you are more skillful, but it could also mean that you just happened to be playing long enough to stagger your way though them. EVE isn't really like that. Sure you can tick you isk value up and your SP value up over time, but nobody is looking at that. The things people respect in EVE take actual skill and effort to do.

And don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm saying you are not respected and the rest of us all are. I'm not respected for anything. I've got my solitude hub in the making, but that's potentially years off of being a noticeable blip. Other than that just like a lot of regular players I plod along. But there are people who do excel and earn respect. Like Chribba, his reputation and his work for the community has taken years to build and achieve, and he's respected for it.

Realistically if you want to be respected you need to stop trying so hard to force people to respect you.

@Lucas: Only the alliance income is alliance income. Of course individual players can PvE or station trade. But they could get this income if they weren't a member of an alliance.

So my statement that "Goons made about 50M/month" it obviously doesn't mean "every Goon had only 50M at the end of the month". It means "Goons gained 50M/month for all the Goony things, the countless hours in bombless bombers, waiting for fleets, being dunked, fighting 5 hours in 10%."

You can claim that as ratting, mining, PI is better in nullsec than highsec, their income is related to Goon owned space. However to do so, you must claim that a null ratter has better ISK/hour than a highsec manufacturer, trader or even multibox-missioner. Let's face it: if you aren't running a botfarm, nullsec PvE isn't at all lucrative, so owning space is neither.

And even for botters and no lifer you can pretty exactly tell the value of a system: as much as renters pay. And it's not that much, about 7B/system https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=273867 and since PBLRD has 135 systems, 2800 pilots, that is about 330M/month/pilot. This is the opportunity cost of being in a nullsec alliance (as members don't pay rent). Highsec EXTRACTOR planets have that money.

I don't get the point of this one. When you wrote it, what dud you expect the reader to take away? A slavoj zizek like ramble, or an actual theory we can apply?

As far as the rest of the comments, they are all too subjective to argue. I will say this, the group here matters. They will never be as efficient, but you kind of almost understand when you talk about the gsf realizing .5 is better than 0.

No one will be able to grind like you, but ten people will. I get 10x the players you have, doing the same thing, and they don't have you be better, they will beat you by sheer numbers alone, and that's why nul needs monkeys.

If you could hold sov with ten alts, you'll never keep it. I can take twenty guys in two fine-tuned and just wear you down while you sleep. You would stink any one or two if them, but numbers win. It's why test could take the most generic mission ship in the game and scare cap pilots. Because numbers win

Think about that with any plans if leadership. Your job would no longer be to play, your job is to facilitate, and organize, and I think it's why your groups here don't so as well as wow. That encouragement is better suited to having no hierarchy, a flat organization. Eve is not. Consider mittens doesn't even play the Damn game, yet he plays it very well. He understands his goal, and it was to put as many guys under his banner, as stably as possible. It's also why montillo wasn't, he didn't build the stability. Tons of tool s at your disposal. The stick, the carrot. Speak to achievers, killers, explorers and socials. That's how you win

Respect isn't having 1bn in kills a day. It's being able to have others do it. You'll know you're there when you can auction off your corpse and get billions

"Only the alliance income is alliance income. Of course individual players can PvE or station trade. But they could get this income if they weren't a member of an alliance."So you understand the difference in the income streams. So why compare them? I make more money than null alliances too, I'm sure most people do. And that's because alliances are budgeted, they don't cost that much to run. Your comparison of you and them is comparing apples to ponies. They simply aren't comparable. Sure, a pony can run faster than an apple, but that's because it's a goddamn apple. It performs the task of being an apple very well, better than the pony in fact.

"So my statement that "Goons made about 50M/month" it obviously doesn't mean "every Goon had only 50M at the end of the month". It means "Goons gained 50M/month for all the Goony things, the countless hours in bombless bombers, waiting for fleets, being dunked, fighting 5 hours in 10%.""So? The members choose to do that instead of ratting. Believe it or not, we don't all just want to grind isk. We don't all go "ooh, opportunity cost, can't do that". In fact, neither do you. How much isk could you have earned if you didn't do your ganking? Clearly more than you did, so why did you do it?

"This is the opportunity cost of being in a nullsec alliance (as members don't pay rent). Highsec EXTRACTOR planets have that money."Nullsec extractor planets have more. Haven't you just got though telling us how much profit there is in a WH? Null PI is about the same.

It's going to be impossible to explain to you, since you just don't get it. You don't understand why people play EVE. You are totally unable to see beyond your reasons for playing, and so you will never be able to understand that people simply don't measure everything in isk/hour. And that's why every time you try to start a cause or build respect, you are doomed to failure, because you simply don't want to take the time to understand why people do what they do.

@Lucas: we aren't talking about the same thing. Before me the canon was "alliances are extremely rich" and "tech must be nerfed". I proved that this "extreme income" is actually laughable.

The above means that alliances are poor and and Goons were poor in the peak of Tech too.

You are right that it's like saying that a pony is faster than an apple. I do not question that Goons prefer flying in fleets over missioning, despite the latter pay better. I do not question that nullsec people are happy while poor.

@Gevlon"we aren't talking about the same thing. Before me the canon was "alliances are extremely rich" and "tech must be nerfed". I proved that this "extreme income" is actually laughable."Nobody ever said that the tech income was comparable to income through things like trade. That's why nobody really tried to take tech moons for personal income, because the isk/hour was bad. But on an alliance scale, and alliance with all the tech moons have a massive isk advantage over the other alliances.

"The above means that alliances are poor and and Goons were poor in the peak of Tech too."Poor if you divide their income among their members and their members have no other income, yes. But comparing alliance to alliance, tech owning alliances were rich. Tech owning alliances could afford to field trillions of isk in ships.The thing is you are comparing personal income to what is essentially the amount of income an organisation has divided by the number of members of that organisation without the inclusion of personal income. It just doesn't work that way.

"You are right that it's like saying that a pony is faster than an apple. I do not question that Goons prefer flying in fleets over missioning, despite the latter pay better. I do not question that nullsec people are happy while poor.

But they are still poor."You totally missed the point. I'm not saying they like to do different things, I'm saying that you comparing your income to alliance income is not a valid comparison. It's comparing 2 completely different metrics. And poor? That's a laugh. I know more than a few people who live in null who's isk balances would put yours to shame.Even on an alliance level, poor is a pretty dumb thing to say. Most null groups count their isk in trillions, and require considerably less than their income even during wartime. If being able to afford huge volumes of what your members want (conflict) and still maintaining positive income is poverty, then sign me up for some poverty.

The thing is you complain that people don't respect you for your isk, but then you clearly are unwilling to even try to understand why your measure of superiority is highly flawed.

Most other "PvP-er" just gank and then claim it was "hard PvP". Perfect point "go get kills in frigates": my own alts count? Or people I paid to die?

This is the nonsense I'm talking about. You are incapable of even imagining seeking out a challenge.

Faced with the prospect of doing something even slightly difficult, you try to cheat. You try to find a way which will make it look like you accomplished something, without actually having to accomplish anything. You try to find a way out of doing anything which might challenge you. You don't seek challenge, you seek grind.

That is not worthy of respect, so why on earth would you be upset that it doesn't get you respect?

Take a frigate. Go to lowsec. Try to kill the people you find there.

People respect you doing a thing which is not easy. To put this very simply, the PvPers who get pretty much universal respect are those who engage on non-station grids while outnumbered and outgunned and still manage to get kills.

I have a problem with a statement like "FooSwarm made 50M/month/member": this is Alliance income, used for alliance purposes. It is usually not paid out as salary to each individual member, thus the 'per-member' part is meaningless.

If we want to compare the 'richness' of alliances, we need to look at useful metrics which actually apply on alliance level. 'Overall income/month' would be one, 'Super-Cap SRP Budget/month' would be another.

Comparing personal income to alliance income is also iffy at best. Having enough personal ISK to buy 10 Titans means nothing if you don't find anybody building them for you. And even having 10 personal Titans means nothing if you don't have the pilots and sub-cap support to actually fly them.

@Peter: but how do they know if it was difficult? (it could be my alt)

@Druur, Lucas: alliance and personal incomes are interchangeable as they are interchanged. The typical way is SRP. If Goons make 50M/member/month, they can give the average member 50M SRP. Some gets more, some less, some zero. But the average must be below 50M. Since you must not fly what you can't replace, the price range of the ships used is this. Result: bombless bombers instead of dreads.

It can be interchanged the other way too: if the average member of alliance X donates 50M, the alliance can run the same programs as GSF

@Gevlon"but how do they know if it was difficult? (it could be my alt)"They don't they simply have to assume it's not. You'd have to kill a lot of alts though, and at some point someone would probably notice.

"alliance and personal incomes are interchangeable as they are interchanged. The typical way is SRP. If Goons make 50M/member/month, they can give the average member 50M SRP. Some gets more, some less, some zero. But the average must be below 50M. Since you must not fly what you can't replace, the price range of the ships used is this. Result: bombless bombers instead of dreads."This is utter nonsense. If alliance and personal income are interchangable, then the alliance members personal income must ALSO be included. And as for SRP, yes, if you divide up the SRP over the entire alliance, tit would be small amounts. But at least 50% of the members are alts that will never fight, and the idea is to not lose trillions of isk in ships. We don't fly dreads into battle expecting them all to die. No alliance aims to lose trillions in ships every battle.

Bombless bombers were a counter to PL and NC having a superior supercap fleet. You might have said "well I can afford dreads so I'll fly dreads", but then they would have die and you soon would have no dreads. What we did instead was say "we can afford dreads, but they will likely die, so we'' fly something our enemy is unable to counter effectively". It's called tactics.

"It can be interchanged the other way too: if the average member of alliance X donates 50M, the alliance can run the same programs as GSF"Noone said you can't. If you ran a null alliance and all of your members donated 50m, I'm sure you could use that to run an SRP program. You'd still have to use tactics and planning to ensure you didn't just wipe the entire SRP budget on day 1 though.

they choose or their corp ceo chooses for them to align somewhere, so they have others that choose elsewhere.they are all the same in a none hardcoded faction sandbox. so at one point you will have to devide to have each other to shoot like RvB. otherwise you endup with one big null corp shooting nothing.

I really don't see the ape RL existance subroutine kick in here. In a not hardcoded game this should be crossing your mind at some point. so no big deal.

@GevlonI agree that WoW has more built-in goals. It is not a sandbox the way Eve is>

I also agree that you did indeed try to plant very specific banners, and that makes you different from people who plant generic ones. That also makes you worthwhile (you don't see me commenting on threads of generic-banner dudes).

What you seem to be saying, however, is that Eve doesn't support specific banners, so that's the problem.

Thing is, i even agree that Eve has worse support for specific banners than WoW, but is it really a problem for Eve?

Somehow i think these are your problems, not Eve's. And it is up to you to overcome them. The way to do it is through learning proper use of social interactions. Amusing as it is seeing you bang your head on the wall, it does get old and is getting kind of painful to watch :(

If i were you, i'd start seeking out people who have need of extra capital and arranging some sort of investment deals with them. Sure, i'd definitely encounter a good amount of scammers, but this can be dealt with by (a) starting small,(b) tieing the amount of money and interest rate for a given person to amount of money he earned you in the past.

With time, you'd be able to build a decent trader/investor alliance. This would be new :D